Thoughts about plants, games, King Arthur, and direct eye contact on public transportation.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Problem Solving

I bought a game controller for my computer last semester, and had gotten it to work in several 2D platformers, but hadn't had any luck in 3D games-- the right analog stick that usually controls view in a 3D game didn't seem to work.

Well, today I decided to tackle that problem, having had enough of playing Skyrim with a touchpad. First of all, Skyrim did seem to even acknowledge the existence of my controller, so I downloaded a program called JoyToKey that would translate the input from the controller into keyboard and mouse input. I manually entered the controller buttons and corresponding keys.

Things were peachy except for the fact that the right axis still wasn't inputting. I decided to dig out the CD that had come with the controller and install some drivers, supposing that that might be a helpful thing to do. After some installing, reinstalling, and restarting, though, things were still the same.

Finally, I decided to look on the internet and see if anyone else was having the same problem. After reading through a single forum, I found the answer-- I need to press the 'Analog' button to make both analog sticks work. I pressed the button (I had wondered what it was for) and a little red light went on, as if to say, "okay, this controller works now."

My controller works perfectly now, and I'm looking forward to playing Skyrim without having to bother with my tangled keyboard controls. For now, though, I have another problem to solve-- what is the name of the surface appendages that allow a bacterium to stick to a surface?